Cyberspace Diary

Nokia E71

2009-02-16T13:59:00.003+01:00

Ok, it took a while but now I've got it. This thing is just A W E S O M E...
Completely autark fetching podcasts, emails, syncing over the web and so on...
The only flaw that I see so far is that I cannot install the Nokia Suite on Windows 7. But well...
The things that amaze me the most are:

Homezone display - show me the Homezone baby!
E-mail - works like a charm
wifi works like a charm
umts works like a charm
I can even watch my video podcasts - was afraid to loose that
goosync
connect with every os to sync and use it as a modem
Nokia ovi
a2dp - baby!

Well the basic thing is that is just works ... battery seems to be neverending and I am - as you might notice - completely happy with that thing...
As soon as my 16gb and dock for the phone arrive, it'll be PERFECTION!

apt-proxy

2009-02-03T07:04:00.002+01:00

An apt-proxy caches software that you retrieve via the apt-get command on a computer in the network. That means if you have more than one computer, this already makes sense. The packages only get downloaded on demand. Whenever a computer requests the packages, the proxy fetches them and keeps them for a time that you can set. If another computer needs the same package, it can get it from the apt-proxy instead of having to download it again. So for bigger debian/ubuntu infrastructures this actually makes a lot of sense. And it is easy to set up, too. All you have to do on the computer that should turn into an apt-proxy is type
suro apt-get install apt-proxy
done. Well you have to change the /etc/apt/sources.list a bit on that computer and on the clients:
Instead of
deb url/ubuntu ... you shall have deb /ubuntu ...
There are actually some pretty good howtos around if that is not enough for you.

kubuntu intrepid

2009-01-24T15:31:00.003+01:00

Just giving kubuntu a go and I have to say that for a rather mature system like the intrepid version there are a lot of things that need to be done before it accepts my external monitor, stops to flicker, does the resolution I want. And some things are not as intuitive as I would like it. BUT the look and feel is great. A lot of ripping of from osx but who doesn't do that these days... ;)
Konqueror is not best friends with flash as it seems so I installed firefox as backup. But I do like the fast webkit machine.
Audio works like a charm compared to the k-missing flavor.
Getting Eclipse to run was also kind of a pain in the ass.
I am keeping this one for the look and feel. Since I love to play around with new things. But if you use ubuntu and want a stable system you might wanna stick to the k-less flavor!

vnstat

2009-01-23T13:49:00.002+01:00

Seems like I forgot this one.
http://humdi.net/vnstat/
Pretty neat little console traffic monitor which monitors the traffic on an interface base. Perfectly easy to set up (sudo apt-get install vnstat for debian folks)

Wie soll man so Vertrauen in RFID gewinnen???

2009-01-08T10:25:00.002+01:00

Amerika macht mal wieder alles falsch, was falsch zu machen ist...
http://www.heise.de/tr/Funkende-Sicherheitsprobleme--/artikel/121121

Get started with apple script...

2009-01-08T08:48:00.001+01:00

it is awesome, what you can do with apple script. Got started on Tuesday and already love it...

If you wanna give it a go, too, get yourself that e-book:

http://fischer-bayern.de/applescript/html/ebook.html

Time Machine for windows..

2009-01-07T15:42:00.002+01:00

... is called clickfree:
http://www.goclickfree.com/

Now windows users can also enjoy a hassle-free backup suite. I hope that'll also come for linux. Until then the penguin-friends can use sbackup (simple backup) which does a pretty good job, too and won't be to hard for a geeky linux-nerd after all...

The perfect mobile phone...

2009-01-07T15:31:00.002+01:00

... is not invented, yet and maybe never will be... BUT - for me the one that comes closest to my opinion of it is the Nokia E71. What I expect of a cell is the following:

good ability to exchange data (+modem)/ sync with all 3 major os
stable os with a good task manager
comfortable media player
podcasts
wi-fi (with wpa2)
gps (and the ability to install a standalone navigation software)
umts (3g)
full keyboard
e-mail features
browser
of course a stable phone software
Bluetooth with a2dp profile

I think that's about it... so I thought to myself: "What do I really want?" - the answer is a mixture of my Pocket Loox's functionality and my Nokia's stability.

From the feature set and all that I read and saw so far, the Nokia E71 is the thing that I have been looking for. I will probably buy one in the 1st quarter of 2009 and post about my experience with it.

ZATTOO

2008-12-20T23:26:00.003+01:00

Watch TV on your computer without a TV card? YES - YOU CAN! ;)

http://zattoo.com/

Zattoo is a software that you download on your pc (win/lin) or mac. You can watch regular tv channels with it over the internet. Don't believe it? Check it out...

TWITTER

2008-12-13T16:58:00.003+01:00

I am on twitter - wanted to see what the hype is all about and it rocks. Probably needs geek status 5+ and also nerd status 5+ but I am there... ;)

http://www.twitter.com

OH: clients: *thwirl (windows) *gwibber (linux) *twitteriffic (mac)

HANDBRAKE

2008-12-13T16:54:00.002+01:00

Handbrake is a multiplatform (OSX,WIN,LIN) DVD ripper that is open source and GPL - how cool is that? -- VERY -- Just downloaded it for osx and will check it out.

http://handbrake.fr/

Steve Jobs deserves a beating!

2008-12-10T10:24:00.002+01:00

First of all I have to say that I really love my MacBook and Mac OS X BUT: Steve really does not want Java developers to work with Apple stuff...
a) Java 6 took forever to come out for osx - since it's Apple's responsibility, not SUN's
b) Java 6 ONLY came out for 64-bit machines and os, which means in plain English:
Dear Apple customer, if you are not willing to buy one of our 64-bit machines with Leopard, then you need to stick with Java 5.

Actually what this implies is that you should go and use ubuntu on your MacBook or rather not buy anything from Apple ever again. How can they be so ignorant and just plain dumb?

Some might say there's soylatte and icedtea, but they are both based on OpenJDK. No offence, but did you ever try to run your stuff on OpenJDK?

The bottom line is, we should either use OpenJDK for our products or just completely boycot Apple. As sad as that is, Steve kind of forces us to and he really does deserve a beating, don't you think?

Neat stuff

2008-11-20T16:12:00.002+01:00

Finally a lean mean UML machine...
http://www.umlet.com/

MediaTomb is an open source (GPL) UPnP MediaServer with a nice web user interface, it allows you to stream your digital media through your home network and listen to/watch it on a variety of UPnP compatible devices.
http://mediatomb.cc/

Prism

2008-11-11T07:22:00.002+01:00

"Prism (formerly, Webrunner) is a prototype application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop."
http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/prism/

It is available for win/lin/mac :D Especially if you have more than one calendar to look at, it beats all the Sunbird, Lightning, Evolution, Outlook implementations for google calendar since it goes straight with the webinterface but puts that into an app. Great tool! Thanks Jan!

What makes life with Windows Mobile easier...

2008-11-06T13:40:00.004+01:00

Since I am using my Windows Mobile device almost exclusively in rather hostile (for windows) environments like Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X, I needed some help to get them together.

For Linux I found synce and opensync the perfect combination. It is definitely not an out-of-the-box working solution but with a little work and love it should make you happy. Especially if you use it with Evolution, like I do. But there are a lot more plugins. Check it out at http://www.synce.org/ . Unfortunately I did not get the file system integration working. I had that got to work with an earlier version but now it seems to not work anymore. So at least to access the SD-card of my device everywhere, I found WM5torage, which is like synce FREE and turns your WM device or rather the memory card in it into an usb stick. http://wm5torage.en.softonic.com/windowsmobile

For Mac OS X I first only found "the missing sync" and "PocketMac". While PocketMac was quite dissapointing for me since I didn't even get it to work even though it was supposed to support exactly the device I have, I at least got refunded all the money I had spent. The Missing Sync worked better, but was also not as fulfilling as I had hoped. Moreover my version was not compatible with Leopard and I don't even know if there's one out, yet. So I was looking for a free solution like synce and stumbled across SyncMate which turned out to be FREE. Of course it is limited unless you buy the full version, but this "restricted" version already does pretty much everything I wished for. And even though it is in a beta state, I didn't manage to get it to hang or crash so far. I am pretty impressed by the offered functionality and the stability. Further down the road, I am 100% sure that I will buy the full version, after some more testing.

http://mac.eltima.com/sync-mac.html

Intrepid Ibex kicks ass!!!

2008-11-04T11:29:00.004+01:00

Even though Intrepid has been around for just a few days, it already made me fall in love. Suddenly the external display works as it should and the dialog for that works like a charm. I love the new combined switch off/logout/... online status widget. Also the hamster widget that helps me to keep track of my activities is awesome. It is not an everything-looks-different release but I am really a lot happier with this release than I was with Hardy. Go check it out at www.ubuntu.com.

WTF: o2 - Windows Mobile

2008-10-28T15:03:00.003+01:00

WTF is up with O2? They have no love for Windows Mobile devices, except for the ones you buy from them. The only way to get the little house, which indicates whether you are in your homezone or not, is to buy one of their phones. I do have a windows mobile phone but not from O2, so that basically means I am screwed. Does anyone know a software which is able to show the state of the homezone on a windows mobile device? PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!

Codeweavers gives away FREE shit!!! ;)

2008-10-28T14:58:00.002+01:00

Well actually it is far from shit, but it is FREE - no joke:

http://down.codeweavers.com

I always wanted to try out their CrossOver Suite but I only got to the CrossOver Chromium they did, which I tried both on Ubuntu and OSX5.
If the suite does the same great work as the Chromium package, then I am more than happy and grateful for this gift.
Unfortunately but understandably their registration page is currently down, so if you get the serial today, you can still register it, once the page is up and running again.

THANK YOU CODEWEAVERS! YOU ROCK!

CHROME is here...

2008-09-02T23:08:00.003+02:00

The new browser from google labs is out, but only for windows users so far, unfortunately. On a first look it is very fast, provides a great overview but lacks the functionality, one would expect from a google browser. No sign of a gBookmarks integration, no mouse gestures, that's the things that I use most. I do not know how other users see that, but these are the things, that safari is lacking and google should know better. But anyways, looking good, working great so far, have to do more testing for a more detailed statement.
UPDATE: Codeweavers released versions of Chromium for Linux and OSX for those who cannot wait for the native version... ;)

Off to the states

2008-08-03T10:41:00.001+02:00

Tomorrow at 6:50 CEST the roller-coaster ride is going to start...

Opera Mobile 9.5 beta

2008-07-22T11:37:00.003+02:00

Hey guys, if you are stuck with a windows mobile device, like me then I can only recommend you to go download the new Opera. Finally browsing the web is fun, even on a win mobile device. It adapts the coolest features from iphone safari, and therefore gives you an almost-iphone-feeling.
Give it a try at http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/download/ .

Motorola HT820 Stereo Bluetooth Headset

2008-06-07T09:51:00.003+02:00

Since I got this AWESOME little gadget, I would neverever wanna live without it anymore. I read some comments on it that said the audio quality would be rather poor or it would be uncomfortable to wear - in my case not true at all.
The HT820 delivers great stereo sound over BT. With the buttons on the right of the headset you can skip to the next track, go back to the previous one, start-stop-pause.
With the left side buttons you can switch the headset on, do the pairing, accept calls, start voice dial, ignore calls. I've already tried out all of this and it works like a charm. I am using it with my FSC Pocket LOOX T810 on a daily basis. Since I go to work on my bike, those two are great company for that. Yesterday I even got in a little sprinkle with the HT820 without any harm done.

THE DRAMATIC CHIPMUNK!!!

2008-05-31T19:49:00.001+02:00

Hardy SynCE windows mobile 5

2008-05-28T13:37:00.003+02:00

If you're still doomed to use a windows mobile device, like I am still, you will be happy to have this link:
http://www.synce.org/moin/SynceWithUbuntu
If you get errors, just install the cdbs (apt-get) and/or get (download) the config.xml for SyncEngine. :D

Happy Syncing!

Apple should use THIS as their commercial! ;)

2008-05-27T08:25:00.001+02:00

Ode to Hardy Heron

2008-04-18T09:57:00.003+02:00

Since I got my new MacBook I wanted to complain about certain stuff in Gutsy - like that I cannot use my Monitor at the office as easy as with Mac OS X - but that's all history. Now that I am using Hardy I managed - without any trouble - to set up my office Monitor, even in native resolution. :D
Sure, there's still the trouble with the Gnome Bars - Icons getting all mixed up, but with that I can live - even though I hope that gets fixed anytime soon.
Next project with the heron will be to set up sync with my win mobile. We'll see how that goes...

Other cool things in hardy:
- if you run your portable on battery power, the fsck will be skipped :D
- pulseaudio solves a lot of the concurrent use audio problems :D
- firefox 3 comes with a nice set of new gimmicks, which are even self-explanatory :D
- new evolution allows to add google calendar out of the box and even rw-access :D
- there's an integrated torrent download manager called transmission :D
- Brasero is already part of the base installation now

ubuntu still is the coolest distro. It only installs what you need and doesn't give you the overkill of earlier SuSE Versions. Thanks, Mr. Shuttleworth!

2008-04-11T14:20:00.000+02:00

13949712720901ForOSX

current projects

2007-10-31T07:27:00.000+01:00

RFID: design of a security solution (anti-theft-protection) for a power plant supplier.
Image processing: developing a IP-program for diagnosis of a rare sickness through EM-pictures.
communication systems: understanding the ftp-protocol and writing a ftp-client and -server from scratch in Java. (second step : in C)

Test: Siemens Pocket LOOX T810

2007-08-20T13:23:00.001+02:00

In brief: Siemens did a great job with this Smartphone/PDAphone.
Windows Mobile 5 has a lot of neat features that makes your life easier. And the Siemens guys even improved the OS. They added a Menu to kill the tasks with which unfortunately even in WM5 is not yet satisfying. For killing a task, you either have to use the magnificent free vbar (http://www.vieka.com/vbar.htm) or kill the tasks manually from time to time. If you don't, after a day or two - depending on your usage - your pda will slow down or crash.

But let's get to the sweet part: this thing has got everything: WLAN, BT, GPS, a small keyboard. What else can you wish for? With the Navigon Navigator that comes bundeled and the already installed MSmessenger + mobile Skype, you are ready to conquer the wwworld.

I especially enjoy the wlan, when I'm too lazy in the morning to switch on my pc, so I just start the wlan and fetch my mail to see if there's anything worth the hustle. The BT-connection allows me to use my BT Stereo-Headset and leave the big guy in the pocket without any wires. The shipped standard-headset requires that you wear your T810 round the neck hanging down the headset on your chest or back. That I cannot recommend. But it is great that they built in a 3.5" jack so you can use any headphone you want to.

gmail smtp with evolution

2007-07-18T12:34:00.000+02:00

Didn't get it to work - the magic is: enter the port 587 after smtp.gmail.com like this:
smtp.gmail.com:587
and use STARTTLS for encryption.
Voilá - that's it... Hope you can make good use of this info...

?

2006-12-29T12:11:00.000+01:00

Tue nichts, um dafür ein "Danke" zu erhalten, denn Du könntest keins bekommen und es war umsonst.

finally windows is dead! :D

2006-11-17T09:05:00.001+01:00

Now with the Edgy release of ubuntu I'm finally satisfied with my Linux. It has everything that I need without the trouble windows gives. And it's free for god's sake...
I now use
- Evolution instead of Outlook - allows me to use my google webcal much easier
- psi for google talk >works great - just missing voice-chat :( but up to now (afaik) that doesn't work anywhere but with the gtalk win app.< - skype - eclipse (with lotsa extensions e.g. phpeclipse :D ) - lampp (www.apachefriends.org) -> unbelieveably easy to install!!!
- google earth
- gaim for msn, yahoo, aol,...
even my mulitfunction epson dx3850 works - even better than on windows. I can scan, i can print and it also works when I switch it on after starting the os unlike with win...

well my o2 xda mini is on strike for sync with synce but I assume that it's the cradle's fault - it already worked so it'll have to work again... ;)

so why keep windows cept for the eye candy? Don't need that for working...
If you want to get that happy with your linux just grep the web for "the unofficial ubuntu guide" that really got me started!

that much for now...

THANK YOU SAMSUNG + TELEPLAN

2006-10-13T21:09:00.000+02:00

Today I just want to thank SAMSUNG and TELEPLAN for having the Combo-Drive of my x20 fixed in 3 days!!! 1st day: ups-pickup (stupidest ups-guy ever.. had to wrap it up for him - seriously!), 2nd day: repair, 3rd day(today): got it back.

And I'm really impressed. The guys from TELEPLAN did a great Job! They just exchanged the drive - the only thing necessary to do... no recovering the standard operating system or such bull...
Thanks a lot guys! Great Job!

cb

only 1024x768 for my SAMSUNG x20 under ubuntu dapper

2006-06-29T12:39:00.000+02:00

After installing the dapper release on my x20 I was shocked - only 1024x768? Por que?
After trying i915resolution looking for a decent driver for linux and some other things I already had given up. But then I thought it did work with hoary, so it WILL work with dapper. My last try was to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and enter my desired resolutions there. And voila it worked, without having to change the res at all my dapper started up next time in sweet 1400x1050.

Hope it'll work out for you the same way, too...

taluego

i-blue gps bluetooth tomtom o2 xda mini

2006-06-01T11:46:00.000+02:00

Finally tomtom works on my o2 xda mini :D

Well if you want to use tomtom on your xda mini, mda compact or whatever you call this little piece of joy you either buy the no-worry-tomtom-all-inclusive-expen$ive-pack or you can buy a cheaper gps-receiver and struggle around with it... I went for the cheaper version since students don't have money to throw away.

So if you wanna use a "non-tomtom" receiver you have to assign a port to your bluetooth gps receiver. That's kinda difficult as the following photo shows:
Opening the list of ports shows that you simply cannot assign any port... it's that simple. And this is not a compatibility problem! But don't you dare contacting o2 support either they'll kill you with stupid questions or they send you a standard email answer that drives you crazy and doesn't help at all.. So what you do is the following:
Get yourself the fancy shiny new bluetooth stack for free from here:
http://bluetooth.i-networx.de/BTHTools1012.zip
It makes your life 300% easier and worked for me... After that just kill (if exist) the pairing and pair the btgps again. You will be surprised!!! :D
The shop (GREAT SUPPORT AND SERVICE, thank you guys!!!) where I bought my receiver also recommends these things:
http://www.online-fink.de/new/support/tipps-tricks-40.html
I was really really surprised how friendly and competent the support team there is... they really care about their customers there! Instead of o2...
So long... navigate safe and enjoy...

vpn uni regensburg vpnc doesn't work?

2006-05-02T15:39:00.000+02:00

If your vpn via vpnc at uni regensburg doesn't work then surf to feyrer.de go for "Veröffentlichungen" and grep around for vpnc.
At the bottom under "update" you will find the solution :D

UPDATE: the password changed. You really have to phone the given number!!!

Windows CE and Linux :D

2006-05-02T15:35:00.000+02:00

If you want to connect your windows ce device such as my o2 xda mini with your linux box then surf to:
synce.sourceforge.net
You'll find hell of interesting stuff there... :D
I use synce along with multisync for communication between evolution and my smartphone and it works great!!!
Go spread the news and enjoy! :D

UPDATE:
If you make it to being able to see the sysinfo of your pda but still cannot sync with multisync you might be missing librra0-tools as described in
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=24805
I experienced this with the new dapper release of ubuntu

How Google Calendar and Outlook can get friends

2006-04-17T01:27:00.000+02:00

How GCalendar and Outlook can get friends:

What you need to start:
-Outlook (in my case 2003)
-GoogleAccount (with calendar)
-InternetConnection

Use your Internet Connection to get the following components:
-RemoteCalendars (CurrentVersion - sourceforge)
-Visual Studio Toolkit for Office (vstor.exe) - M$
-Outlook 2003 PIA (o2003pia.exe)

Then you do the following:
1) Install vstor.exe
2) Install o2003pia.exe
3) Install RemoteCalenders
(If you change the order you will get error messages)

When you start Outlook the next time you will be prompted by RemCal to set everything and get a new toolbar to add new remote calendars. In the settings of your google calendar use the PRIVATE-iCal-Adress there are two - don't use the public one because this one won't work unless you want to share all your dates with the world...
Enter the copied Adress in RemCal as new Remote Calendar that you want to import...
From now on every change that you make in GCal will also be made in your Outlook...

BUT: It's a one-way-business... it only goes from gcal to OL - it's not really a sync.
AND: I never got the import function of google with my export from OL working - there was always a upload/import error... So well guess I'll use it like this until the ultimate plugin with sync-button comes up... But I already love gcal... have to admit!! Easy and fast to enter appointments... Incredible! GOOGLE ROCKS!!!!